A diabetic coma, Take 1

Joe Nielsen &#151 aka Joe Zen &#151 a San Antonio man with Type 1 diabetes, shot an arty little video that begins with his waking up in the morning with low blood sugar, and ends with him collapsed on the kitchen floor in a diabetic coma.

It’s better than it sounds.

Blurry and drained of color, accompanied by the urgent strains of Mozart Symphony No. 25, the video follows Joe as he bolts upright in bed, stumbles downstairs to prick his finger for a blood sugar measurement and gulps from a carton of OJ (I think it’s OJ) &#151 too late to prevent his lapsing into a diabetic coma.

Not being diabetic, I can’t know what hypoglycemia feels like. But I think I’ve got a better sense of it watching Joe’s fuzzy video.

The video was one of 14 by 10 people selected for an online video contest on MakingSenseofDiabetes.org, sponsored by Diabetes Hands Foundation.